The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1887-06-30
Abou, the Health of Henderson.

Exaggerated and ridiculous reports have
been circulated about the amount Of sick
ness and number of deaths In Henderson
lately. Ordinarily, we believe the best way
to treat n falsehood--and such stories as
have gone ont broadcast about us are moth
ing short of base f.hrications-is to pay no
attention TO it, but justice to our people in
this case demands that some notice be taken
of it. Ii has come 10 Us that certain drum
mers for business houses not Thousand
miles from here have told that disease Of
deadly nature was epidemic in Hem
derson. that il sas absolutely Contagious
and people were dying here like sheep with
the rots, at the rate of forty day. That so
izens of the town they were leaving by the
train load and hardly enough remained who
were not themselves stricken down TO care
for the dead and dying. That the under
takers were overrun with business and help
and collins had to be sent from distance.
That it was dangerous for person TO come
here with tobacco, or even remain long
enough to change cars, from the Oxford
story is that cholera is raging here aud the
town has become almost depopulated;
while another fertile-brained liar has
changed tactics and would have it believed
that the day after the local option election
here thirty bar-rooms were opened in town
and two hundred drunken persons were put
in the lookup the first Saturday after
whiskey had been voted back. That a per-
feet pandimonium reigned here and law
run riot. Such reports are too ridiculoasly
absurd to be believed by intelligent people
in the territory tributary to Henderson,
and perhaps we would allow the matter TO
pass unnoticed bnt for the fact that they
have gone abroad where the situation is mob
known and some creicnce is liable to be
given 10 them, TO the extent that the health
of the town is bad and the death rate very
large, at least. And this idea is forced
upon us by communication from DR..
I. w. Wood, of Wilmington, editor of the
North Carolina Medical Journal, to DIR.
J. H. Tucker, making enquiry about tho
situation here, asking if any unusually
virulent type of disease. dysentery or other
trouble, was prevalent here. II is hardly
necessary for us to say DIR. fuckers reply
was positively in the negative.
The facts are, there has been no more
sickness in Henderson than usual-aud it
is not an unhealthy place. Five adult
| white persons, only, have died of dysentery,
and we have it upon the authority of the
| physicians that all of them were laboring
under some constitutional debility at the
time they were taken sick /; that they would
have died under any acute disease, and fell
easy victims to the wasting and facilitating
trouble that took them of. Two Of them
were very old persons, and one has been
expected TO die at any time for the last
year. Probably half dozen negroes have
died, only one of them with bowel trouble,
though, so far as we have been able TO learn.
The mortality among the children has been
less than any summer heretofore. TIE
health OF the town al present is better than
at any time during the spring, ard with
the coming of settled weather we may
| expect ii to Sc continue.